Let's Party Like It's 1989

by Robert Sissco

"It's always a challenge hiding something sensitive that you might need quickly.  Any hiding place involves a trade-off between security and access.  Hide something in the sewer main beneath your floor and it's secure, but good luck getting to it.  Hide something in your sock drawer and it's easy to get to but hardly secure.  The best hiding places are easy to get to but tough to find.  The do-it-yourself versions are known in the spy trade as slicks - easy to slip something in, easy to slide it out."

      --- Michael Westen, Burn Notice, Season 2, Episode 9.

As hackers, access is everything.

If we can get into it, or at it, we will.  It is in our nature.  And this isn't always to cause millions of dollars of damage by looking at something (also, F.U. Sun Microsystems).

I remember laughing when I first watched Freedom Downtime and seeing the scene where the FedEx truck driver found several cases of beer in a drop box, because they use the same combination on all their drop boxes.  Funny and entertaining.

On the other hand, I used to do tech support for the Microsoft point of sale systems, and remember one customer that literally built their server into a wall to prevent access to it.  But this meant when that server was dying (likely due to overheating due to lack of ventilation), it was frustrating and sad because these people were at a high risk of losing the system they used to run their livelihood on.

But it's our very nature as humans to want to keep our own devices and areas restricted to ourselves.  Today this can range from encryption programs to hiding a yellow floppy disk in an air vent in our bedrooms.  But many governments require encryption programs to register a public-key with them in order to do business in their country, and if you need to flee quickly, you may not be able to get that disk out.

But one thing that many people overlook is compatibility with modern devices.

I still have a 512 MB flash drive from college that used USB 1.0 to connect to systems, and will still connect to my USB 3.0-only desktop system.  Again, we have used this to our advantage (honey pot USB sticks left in parking lots, anyone?).  But this means our tech can be plugged into a system used by those we do not want to have access in order for others to access it.  I can still access my late-1990s/early-2000s buggy C++ and Intel x86 assembly programs with no issues. They are also common and easy to pocket and walk away with (who reading this hasn't "found" an USB drive somewhere and then found it later in their pocket?).

Let's look at the retro.

CDs and DVDs are great: stable, easy to hide, hold a decent amount of data, but hard to rewrite.  Meaning, in most cases, once your data is written, it might as well be in stone.  And yes, I know CD-RWs exist, but honestly, I have had nothing but bad experiences with these, and often by the third rewrite the data is so horrible that it might as well be lost.  This puts a barrier on data upkeep.

But wait, I mentioned floppy disks earlier.  What about them?  Can be written to many times, not the largest amount of storage space, and a bit obscure to use (when was the last time you actually needed to use a floppy disk or even found a system with a reader installed?).  And many of the older style disks are rather stable and built to last.  The ones from the 1990s are often where quality was sacrificed on the altar of profits.  However, while it will not auto launch, most systems with a drive can read them, and they still make and sell 3½-inch USB floppy drives.

Well, wait a moment.

Only as long as the disk was written in a compatible system on a compatible drive, can it be read.  Anyone from the 8-bit or early 16-bit system days may remember that those who used the same OS (say, CP/M) may not have been able to read disks on a different model system despite running the same code.  Sure, there are devices that could be attached to increase compatibility, but can we use this to our advantage?  Yes, but even some systems back in the day could get around this.

But if we take it a step further, what if the drives were not compatible because they were physically built differently?

Let's take a look at the most popular system ever sold, the ones built for the masses, not the classes?  The Commodore line of systems.  Their drives were wired differently (for instance, an IBM 3½-inch disk drive could not be used in the Amiga systems or the 1581 drive without modification because the pin outs were different).

In addition, accessing a disk in a lot of systems is easy.  But while many of those in the scene from the later years may or may not have knowledge of DOS commands, how do you access drives on the Commodore?

I am sure many of my fellow Boomer and Gen X hackers may remember the command: LOAD "*",8,1

And while you can look this command up, again, the accessibility is not there.

Not everyone has a Commodore available.  Not many people would keep the old while they move to the new.  Heck, the first Commodore I bought was just a few years ago from a pawn shop.  I got it cheap because they thought it was only a keyboard.  This means that many today may not even recognize the system.  So, set up right next to my 8-core i7 64 GB RAM with 2 TB of storage space I have my 1 MHz 64 kB RAM system with zero native storage.

Now, while many may see a gap, there really isn't.

I have cartridges and devices I can plug into my C64 to attach to a LAN to access disk image files on my server, or to get onto my network to access BBS systems.  I can communicate between systems with the proper knowledge.

And even today, people have designed and developed - and sell - systems that allow these older devices to work on modern devices.  This means I can access and use my Commodore disk drives on that i7 system I mentioned earlier to read and write files if I don't want to hook up the ole CRT monitor to see what I am doing.

Not good enough for you, you say?

Lots of people still have disk drives?  How about going even older and using cassette tapes?  Needing to remember the counter on the tape to find the specific data needed, and it is slow!  Worried about people getting files quickly?  Yea, not happening, they would need to take the tape, and then you may notice it is missing.

Or go the Amstrad route and use the 3-inch disks, something I do not think were ever really used on IBM systems (which became modern PCs), adding another layer of access obscurity to your security...

So, by embracing the old in the age of the new, I feel secure in my data since many do not know how to use my data or even what to look for.  Between the encrypted USB flash drive I always keep on my person to the out-in-the-open "how do I access this stuff" media, I feel relatively secure in my data.  Will this keep a determined individual out of my stuff?  No.  But I have a higher bar than many because of the obscurity of the mix of media I use.

Want more proof that this is not a crazy idea?

Until 2019, the United States Air Force used 8-inch floppy disks to control systems related to ICBMs, nuclear bombers, and tanker support, because the disks were stable and required physical access to the media and drives to interact with, adding a level of protection between those authorized to use the system and those from outside it who should not have access but may want it.  And per Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson, spokesperson for the U.S. Defense Department, "It still works."

And yes, my Commodore can run Crysis, because I wrote a BASIC program and titled it "Crysis" just so I can answer "yes" to this question.